2 Week Surgery Check Up

*WARNING – CONTAINS FOOT PHOTOS AND POST SURGERY PICS*

Happy new year all! This post should have been shared 4 weeks ago but in that time I have been doing more resting, some holidaying and a lot of christmassing. So forgive me!!

It’s been a quick two weeks since I had my toe straightening surgery.

What have I done in the last fortnight? Pretty much nothing. I’ve spent a good 22 hours of each and every day with my foot elevated on 3 pillows. I’ve ate, slept and lived on the sofa all day every day. I’ve done as little walking as I can get away with. Kept bathing to a minimum and have only ventured out of the house twice, once for a flu jab and the other time to purchase the all important Christmas tree. Walking hasn’t been easy for me. I often feel quite nauseous and I’ve taken to keeping the foot entirely off the floor when I’m walking with crutches as opposed to heel weight bearing. But other than that I’ve not had a lot of pain at all. I can feel that the pins are there if I try to flex my toes but other than that I would have no idea that they were there.

On Tuesday (3 days ago) I returned to hospital for my two week check up. I had possibly the loveliest nurse I’ve ever had.

She carefully cut through the many layers of bandage – I was shocked to see how slim my foot is without the bandages! Then using a cool water like solution she applied it to the dressings to help them be removed.

She then carefully cleaned away the toes, they were all caked in congealed blood, and she got to work on removing the stitches.

The stitches on the top of the foot, where the joint was released, were dis-solvable, the stitches in the toes were not.

First the dis-solvable stitches were cut. She very gently pulled them upwards, a quick snip of the scissors and they were gone.

She then cleaned the toes before picking and cutting out the stitches. This was the part I was a bit worried about, I was quite fearful it’d really hurt. But no, just a slight jaggy pain where she was pulling it ever so slightly upwards, and that was it. There was nothing to worry about! Kind of like having a long leg hair pulled.

The toes themselves are looking great, she even used the word exemplary. She puts this down to my near constant bed rest. There’s no pain, no redness and no swelling. So if you’ve having toe straightening surgery my advice is to rest with your feet elevated as much as possible!!

The nurse then re-dressed my foot and gave me a tubigrip to wear over the top to keep the toes warm. She then got me another support sandal. Despite the fact the one I had was a ladies large, it wasn’t long enough to support my toes (FYI my feet aren’t giant, they’re a standard size 6!) so I was given a mens large (how we lol’d) and instantly the extra support felt fantastic. I was no longer having to work hard to keep the toes away from the floor, the pain and strain of which was probably adding to the nausea.

So where to from here? As it stands I’m not having the pins removed until the 9th of January, which is another 5 weeks. They may look to bring it forward a a week, inline with the initial 6 week plan, but as it’s Christmas and New Year, I may just have to get on with it for an extra week….which if nothing else means an extra week off of work, hoorah!

I’ve spoken to my biologic nurse at rheumatology and have been told to not start cosentyx again until January, which is exactly what I wanted her to say! So far I’ve not flared and I’ve had no return of my psoriasis. I have slight aches and pains but nothing I can’t cope with. So far so good!